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Tuesday, 24 April 2012

Ghosts of Sockburn (NZ350070)

At the
southern-most tip of the Diocese of Durham lies the parish of Sockburn. It’s a
busy little place, history-wise, though you wouldn’t think it looking at it
today, amounting, as it does, to little more a large farmer’s field situated in
a giant loop of the River Tees.

There’s a
nineteenth century mansion, a slightly earlier farmhouse and a ruined parish
church – the much contracted population numbering little more than a few dozen
(if that). There seems to have been something about the place, though, in times
past which attracted the great and good to the spot. Higbald, Bishop of
Lindisfarne, was crowned there in around 780 – ditto Eanwald, Archbishop of
York, in 796. What are described as ‘Viking Age sculptured stones’ lie (still,
I think) among the ruins of All Saints church, which add to the mystery of the
place – as does the legend of the Sockburn Worm (or Dragon), slain by the
Conyers family who for centuries owned the manor. The creature is said to be
buried hereabouts.

Due to its
geographical situate, Sockburn was for centuries the spot where each new Bishop
of Durham was ceremonially welcomed into the diocese by the Lord of the Manor –
a practice recently revived, in fact.

William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge
and Lewis Carroll all have connections with the place – which encounters seem
to have found their way into some rather famous works. Coleridge’s Love was written at Sockburn after the
married poet fell for local girl, Sara Hutchinson, whilst staying at her
brother’s farm. And Carroll is supposed to have based Jabberwocky on the legend of the ‘worm’ – though the Lambton Worm also claims this
distinction.

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